calabar

I’ve been meaning to review the 7th edition of The Bridge Leadership Foundation career day, with the theme: Made In Nigeria: Local Production, Global Market, but then time and chance was yet to happen to me.

Anyways, I decided to throw of the formality of the whole thing and just put together a few things that were of note to me.

I loved that it was free for attendance and transportation to and fro the venue (Calabar International Convention Center). People! Start taking opportunities for such free things, most free stuff are worth the while.

Senator Liyel Imoke, the former governor of Cross River state began with an opening address. He spoke about having bankable ideas (Ideas that will make people ready to invest in), building your own capacity (don’t say what you are not, identify what is in you and leverage on that, no two people are the same and therefore you can’t think to copy another and hope to succeed, even identical twins are not wired the same way.)

No story happens overnight, it takes years of handwork and determination to succeed

Failure in most cases comes before success, failure is a necessary part of success, and it drives success.

Not being extraordinary should not dissuade you. Don’t be afraid to be ordinary! I am an ordinary guy, watch me succeed.

The former governor of Imo state, Mr. Peter Obi was very much present and spoke about leadership and integrity and one of the things he said was that can a politician speak on this and be believed? Because being a politician and with integrity is hard. A lot about this amiable man and what he said I cannot possibly write in this post, but a few I’ll list.

Innovation separates a leader from a follower.

Leadership is about responsibility.

Leadership is not about money or popularity.

Education and qualification is not one of the things that separates a leader from follower, it’s good but not all that matters.

Leadership is not about having a post or a position somewhere.

A leader is a learner.

Something else that kept recurring (even aside from the conference) is the concept of a knowledge and baggage (resource-based) economy. The recession we are facing now is as a result of our over-dependence on import. Too much importation but yet we are not exporting and it’s affecting our Gross Domestic product (GDP). To all of us that are wondering what this is, I could put up a post much, much later about this, just holla in the comments if you want me to. Some companies and even individuals apparently are worth more than our GDP and some other African countries put together. We need to take back our country. To be responsible for it. Also worth nothing is that in every crises, leaders emerge from it. In crises, see opportunities!

We need to make Nigeria what we want it to be! To stop depending, being hypocrites and playing the blame game.

Another very salient point Mr. Peter Obi made was that the reason why most people do not want to leave government is because they have nowhere to go back to after their tenure. Which shouldn’t be. Being in government is about service to the country and after servant-hood, you leave, but most people want to be servants till death parts them.

The Panel Discussion segment

This was so insightful that I can’t begin to write everything, not even one-third of it. If there was an available recording, I would get it.

We had the likes of (in no particular order)

Ofem Ekapong, MD of SmartCity Lagos, limited, focused on the development of SmartCity Lagos

Olusegun Awolowo, CEO Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) (although he sent a representative)

Achenyo Idachaba, founder of MitiMeth, a social enterprise which trains and engages riverine communities and local artisans to produce unique handcrafted home décor and personal accessories using invasive aquatic weeds

Photo by Veedeyo

Exactly one of the reasons why this blog was created was to beat the Calabar girl stereotype.

A Calabar girl is not promiscuous. This is like the major stereotype trailing Calabar people and not just females.

A Calabar girl is eme! (efik for a gem)

A Calabar girl is beautiful (duh! everyone knows that)

A Calabar girl is humble yet strong!

There are a lot of other stereotypes that label people based on their tribes, their families, their appearances etc, but the thing about stereotypes is that it assumes the “one size fits all” which is often always not true. we are all different in different ways and therefore we shouldn’t let wrong stereotypes influence us to act according to them.

This post should have come as a follow up of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) event of Friday but unfortunately I missed it (Unavoidable Family Function) and I promise to try my beat to never let this happen again! but one obvious theme from the event was about beating this negative Calabar girl stereotype

It is our responsibility as Calabar girls to beat negative stereotypes about us and create better ones and help others live up to them. we owe it to ourselves and to the generations yet to come.

No matter the type of stereotype labeling you, whether you are a Calabar girl or not…Beat The Stereotype!